I was talking to a non Christian who innocently said he thought we had to come from somewhere- he asked me what was around before the Big Bang. I understand the basics of the Big Bang. But how do you answer the question of what happened to cause the Big Bang- What was before. ?

It's a complex idea to wrap your head around, even for renowned physisists who have spent their life studying things like the big bang. It's part of my biggest problem with the big bang, not because I think not understanding what existed before makes it impossible for the big bang to be plausible, but because my mind just works that way. I have to understand the why and how, not just the result. This may stem from me being dyslexic - I have problems in math when the equations get complicated enough that I can't see or understand how and why they work.

However, no one has come up with a satisfactory answer for where God came from either. "He's always been" makes far less sense to me than the idea that the universe existed with a huge amount of energy that exploded into matter.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who has said it- not even if I have said it- unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha

(06-12-2013 12:27 PM)Chrisinfp Wrote: I was talking to a non Christian who innocently said he thought we had to come from somewhere- he asked me what was around before the Big Bang. I understand the basics of the Big Bang. But how do you answer the question of what happened to cause the Big Bang- What was before. ?

I have no problem with the concept of a "before" the big bang. What I have a problem with is randomly guessing that the something that existed then was "god" when there is zero evidence for that conclusion. (And exactly who or what is "god" again?)

Edit:
Aargh! I just realized you said you were talking to a non Christian...

Ok, so the big bang theory basically says that there was a singularity where all matter was on top of itself with infinite density from which the big bang occurred. Within the singularity, the laws of physics would have broken down such that everything in the universe resulting from the big bang would not have been directly caused by anything pre-big bang. Therefore, time and space (for this universe) are said (by some) to have started with the big bang.

Personally, I think it stands to reason that the singularity wasn't necessarily the first thing in existence anywhere, although many disagree with me. So, to the question, what existed before the big bang, I would say "we don't know" and I'm satisfied with that answer until more information comes along.

"Religion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea." --Madalyn Murray O'Hair

If I had to guess... I'd say that the Big Bang wasn't the beginning of everything, just our universe as we know it.

String theory speculates that the 3 spacial dimensions we know to stretch out and give things size and shape may once have been curled in on themselves. Basically, vibrating strings of energy travel through more spacial dimensions than we see, dimensions that exist everywhere, but in such a way that we cant see them. Now its thought that three of these dimensions may have unwound in the big bang, and now some strings that vibrate through those dimensions are manifested as parts of our universe. So if that is even remotely correct, the universe simply existed in another state before the big bang.

To imagine these other spacial dimensions being EVERYWHERE but unable to be seen, imagine the universe as 2D, like a piece of paper. If you hover above the paper with a pencil, nobody that lives in that 2D universe would be able to see it, it would be impossible to see that dimension... However, by moving the pencil along that 3rd dimension, you could pierce the paper, creating a point that would grow larger, and seem to have appeared from nowhere. Just apply this same logic to any higher spacial dimension.

And there is the quantum physical explanation as well, where matter can emerge from nothing.

But all that aside, why do we need to know everything, anyway? People's mental capacity and potential is limited, therefore:
1) we can not expect to know everything
2) even if knowledge is present, we can not expect to understand everything

We always point to science in our hopes to gain wisdom and knowledge. But most topics in science are controversial. Now, basic scientific knowledge can not be argued against because of the immense evidence backing them up, and can be accepted as true knowledge. But for the rest, we need to learn how to be open minded and hypothetical. Being biased towards a certain point of view is perfectly fine, that is what scientists do as well. But people shouldn't assume to have or to seek absolute knowledge in complicated questions like this.